Josh Pate believes the Sooners are loaded heading into 2025
Josh Pate believes the Sooners are loaded heading into 2025
The Oklahoma Sooners have made plenty of changes this offseason, hoping to avoid a repeat of what happened in 2024. In Year 4 under head coach Brent Venables' leadership and Year 2 in the Southeastern Conference, OU simply cannot afford another 6-7 season like the one they had last year. Otherwise, even more drastic changes will be coming to the program.
But as for 2025, many national pundits are starting to believe in Venables's moves this winter and spring. That includes Josh Pate, who hosts "Josh Pate's College Football Show" and is a college football analyst for CBS Sports. He believes the Sooners have loaded up this offseason.
"Oklahoma's made some really, really good moves here," Pate said. "Quarterback was a major concern for them and they went and got (John) Mateer out of Washington State, with his offensive coordinator (Ben Arbuckle) for good measure. Check."
The Sooners have made definite upgrades at both quarterback and offensive coordinator, two issues that derailed them a season ago. Jackson Arnold led Oklahoma is passing last year with the lowest yardage total since Jake Sills' 1998 mark in the final season of the John Blake era. Arnold struggled mightily, that's for sure, but he and the rest of the offense were hampered by having Seth Littrell at the controls. He was fired after just seven games. The duo of Joe Jon Finley and Kevin Johns finished out the season but didn't fare much better.
Mateer and Arbuckle provide familiarity with each other and proof of concept, two things Arnold and Littrell did not have. Advantage, 2025 Sooners. But while those two moves are massive, they aren't the only changes that have Pate excited about what OU can be this year.
"They got maybe the best tailback in the country that was available from Cal," Pate said.
That would, of course, be Jaydn Ott, the biggest addition for the Sooners in the spring portal window. He was banged up in 2024, but his 2023 campaign has Oklahoma fans imagining what he can do in the backfield alongside Mateer. The Sooners have had to go running back by committee since Eric Gray moved on to the NFL, and have the pieces to do so again this year. But Ott provides a player that is capable of being a game-changer when he's healthy. Speaking of game-changers, Pate is excited about a player that OU is getting back from injury this season as well.
"You remember this time last year, we were talking about Deion Burks out of Purdue," Pate said. "He got hurt last year and so he wasn't the impact player we thought he'd be. But he still has that potential. And so he's there, they added a starting OT like we talked about, added two other defensive starters."
Burks' decision to come back for one more year of football, and to do it in Norman, was a big boost for Venables and his staff. If he's healthy, he can be the No. 1 target that Mateer and Arbuckle will need him to be.
Pate also recognized the job Venables has done in high school recruiting and in the transfer portal since taking over in December of 2021, which means that the talent is there in a lot of places on the roster for Oklahoma.
"This is a program that has stacked top 10 recruiting classes and portal classes on top of each other," Pate said. "They've got an incredibly difficult schedule this year. But they could also be a College Football Playoff team this year."
Are there holes on the depth chart for the 2025 Oklahoma Sooners? Sure, there are. But last December, Venables and the coaching staff headed into an offseason when changes absolutely had to happen after a dismal showing in 2024. While the roster isn't perfect, so many of the problem areas have been addressed and improved in the last five months. But only time will tell whether Venables' moves will pay off this fall.
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